Junk, but healthy

Future Food is a young company that has no analogues on the Ukrainian market. It is working on production of flax chips, making the food tasty, but healthy. The founders — Pavlo Sebastianovich and Sergiy Shakola — develop recipes by themselves and believe that the flax chips must defeat potato ones

Pavlo Sebastianovich is an engineer of system engineering. He jokes that he should be developing computers, not chips, although he did not work for a single day as an engineer. Before working with Future Food, Pavlo had been engaged in metallurgy for a long time:

“We had a factory, and we exported metal. In principle, the production of alloys is similar to the production of chips — you take the ingredients, weigh everything, mix it and get the desired result”.

Pavlo Sebastianovich

He began to be interested in healthy food for a long time already — in peaceful Donetsk together with Sergiy Shakola they opened a store of healthy products. Also, friends practiced a raw food diet, so the idea of ​​creating chips from flax did not come about by chance:

“We held different festivals of raw food, and noticed that one of such products, which are very popular among vegetarians and vegans, is flax bread”.

Poster created to one of the raw food festival held by Pavlo and Sergiy

And then the war began. Pavlo lives in Kyiv permanently, and Sergiy remained to Donetsk until the last. But when the projectile fell next to his house, he realized that further life could not be there. He gathered his family and moved to Pavlo.

In Kyiv he had to begin a new life. That’s how Pavlo and Sergiy remembered about flax and decided to start their own business:

“The tastes of people are different and it was necessary to think up something that corresponds to the tastes of not only vegetarians and vegans, but ordinary people.”

All recipes Pavlo Sebastianovich develops by himself. Now in the line of Future Food there are gold and classic chips from different flax varieties. In the future, they plan to launch flaxseed chips with onions and Italian herbs, as well as sweet ones from dates and sesame.

“In the beginning, we experimented with the ingredients, and somehow decided to add peanuts, to see what happens. But it was not exactly what we expected — it turned out that when you mix flaxseed oil with peanut butter, an unpleasant odor is emitted. We could not understand for a long time what the matter was, at first we decided that the seeds were spoiled or something else. In general, this idea had to be abandoned, because peanuts are also an allergen”.

The composition of chips contains mainly flax and pumpkin seeds. For a better taste they decided to add tomato paste, pepper and salt.

The main feature of the product is that everything is made from natural ingredients, at low temperatures and nothing is fried. The process of making chips is very simple. All ingredients are weighed, and then mixed in a blender. The result is a batter. It is transported to special pallets, from which it drips onto the baking tray.

Despite the natural composition, this product cannot be considered as a dietary one. The caloric content of flax chips is about the same as that of regular chips. But the main difference is that the calories in potato chips are due to the oil in which they are roasted. In general, fried butter is already bad, because in most types of oils used for frying, dangerous carcinogens are formed. In flax chips, calories come from flaxseed oil, which is found inside the seeds. When you try chips, you can even feel a taste of fish oil — it’s omega-3, fatty acids, which are considered very healthy. Flax is generally called salmon in the world of plant products. But, despite it’s composition, Future Food chips cannot be called organic food. This must be confirmed by certificates. The founders say that it is possible to make organic products, in Ukraine there are companies that grow organic flax, but also, it is still necessary to certify all equipment. Only then the products will be considered as organic.

Working on the packing equipment

In Ukraine, a lot of flax is grown, but mostly it is used for fabric. Seeds are originally a by-product, they squeeze out oil, make vitamins, but no one has made food from flax yet. But after the worldwide boom of the use of flax began, everyone is talking about it.

In Germany, for example, bakery producers are obligated to add oilcake to bread — that is the product that gets after squeezing vegetable oil from the seeds of oilseeds that have been trained. This is a good way to preserve the useful properties of seeds in the product. Flour may not have a very good effect on the intestines, but cellulose, which contains flax, has healing and cleansing properties. Len is the record holder for cellulose, and 100 grams of such chips are the daily norm of cellulose and omega-3.

All raw materials and equipment, which are used in the production, are Ukrainian. The packing equipment is standard, but the drying cabinets and blender are invented by founders and are made-to-order.

The company that was engaged in production of technique for Future Food mainly works on synthesis of organic molecules for the pharmacological industry. This is a high-tech company. Initially, such cabinets were intended to dry some chemicals for laboratory research. Pavlo and Sergiy themselves pushed the company to create equipment for the food industry, because they already have all certificates. The company agreed and made the technique according to the proposed drawings.

The drying cabinets

Sebastianovich says that they are still planning to improve it — in the course of time you notice that somewhere the drying is not so dry, somewhere the moisture condenses.

“We even turned to the National Technical University of Ukraine to professor who specializes in drying processes. He will calculate for us the exact formula, at what speed moisture leaves. So we could know what power should be a ventilator that supplies air. “

Besides Pavlo and Sergiy, the company has 5 more employees.

For now Future Food produces small volumes. In comparison, they have 150,000 packs a year, while Lay’s chips factory produces 60 million packs. Chips from flax are only at the beginning of their journey, but the creators claim that they are ready to expand.

For now Future Food products can be bought only in Kiev, but soon chips from flax will be presented in the networks of all major markets of Ukraine.

“At the Kiev fair of goods called Made in Ukraine, we were convinced that our product is not only for a narrow target audience of vegetarians and vegans. There fair was full of beer, sausages, all the fried things, and we stand among it all with flax chips — and sales were crazy. This gave us the understanding that Future Food is for everyone”.

Pavel Sebastianovich believes that the principle of healthy eating is not that you need to give up something, but that something harmful should be replaced with something useful. To create a good product is not even half the success, the main thing is to bring it to the audience. That’s why Future Food makes chips. It is important for them to associate with such “harmful” food in order to offer consumers an alternative choice.